If you are looking for a horror story that proves just how bad the new "iPad kid" is and how much worse it is going to get, this is it.

I was raised in a neighborhood where there was not a single other kid. Nobody was my age, so I was already pretty isolated. My parents gave me an iPad the year it came out (I think I was around 4-6) and since then I was hooked. I got addicted to youtube and would spend entire days watching mindless content. Throughout my entire childhood, I never played any sports, never had any real hobbies, and rarely even went outside. I just stayed inside at a time in my life when I should have been running around with other kids socializing. Youtube and videogames. That was it. There were times when I was interested in picking up a real hobby. I wanted to play basketball at some point. Another time, I got interested in parkour and wanted to do that. Later, I got interested in martial arts. I saw all kinds of videos where I watched people do these things. I wanted to start.

My parents never let me do them. It was too much of a hassle to drive me to a place where I can do something in the real world. It was easier to just leave me with my iPad, being overstimulated in my little room.

I never developed any real social skills. I am horribly myopic and basically blind without my glasses. It feels like my whole childhood went by in just the blink of an eye when I try to remember it, because nothing ever really happened. I was first exposed to porn at 11 and was immediately addicted. This porn addiction stayed with me for years afterward. At the age of 14, I stumbled into various political extremist communities and was radicalized, leading me to espouse their views. I was pulled into all kinds of dark extremism without even knowing it.

When I went into high school, I could not connect with anybody. I couldn't even keep a basic conversation going. I could not make any friends, because I was simply incapable. I could not comprehend the concept of being social or establishing friendships. During my entire 4 years of high school, I made a total of 2 friends. I watched everybody else around me socialize and it would sometimes make me cry, because I did not know how to interact with people and create real connections like everybody else. Whenever I talked to people, they seemed repulsed by me, because I had no understanding of social norms or proper mannerisms. I would unintentionally push everybody away. I felt robbed of my teenage years.

To this day, I feel like I am still dealing with the consequences. I have since kicked the ideology I was brainwashed into believing in by assholes online. My social skills have improved drastically, but I still have other issues that I am working through. I feel like I might be damaged in all kinds of other ways that I am not even aware of yet. It angers me knowing that I could have had a real childhood, real connections, and real experiences. I still resent my parents for being so complacent, leaving me in my room for the internet to raise me and turn me into a cave dwelling freak.